Mark Glover's blog includes reviews of the latest motor vehicles introduced for sale in the United States, his take on various aspects of the auto industry and periodic insights on auto racing at home and abroad.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

This fast cat has a super-high fun factor

This review originally
appeared in the June 2012 edition of theNorthern
& Central California Cruisin’ Newspublished out of Folsom,
California – mg

Sacramento, California– I and
colleagues who test-drive cars do so to inform the public and hopefully provide
needed information to motoring enthusiasts.

But deep in our hearts, all of us
also are waiting for a big one. And it
arrived for me recently: a 2012 Jaguar XKR-S convertible.

The numbers speak for
themselves. A 550-horsepower
supercharged V-8 engine, an advertised top-end speed of 186 miles per hour (NO,
I did not get it up to that threshold), 20-inch super-sexy wheels and a sticker
price of $145,250.

Yes, so expensive that you don’t
want anyone near the car … “Hey, you kids, get away from there!”

Wheeling around so much excess in
these wobbly economic times can make you feel guilty, and that oh-so-pricey gas
goes quickly with fuel mileage of 15 miles per gallon in the city and 22 mpg on
the highway. But when the guilt goes
away in 90 seconds or so, you’re ready to have fun.

And that’s what this Jag is: pure
fun.

For a week, I had a supercar that
others did not, and well, it was payback time for all those motorists who’ve
been bullying me on my daily commute.
Just a small smash on the accelerator made everything around me on four
wheels slow to a seeming crawl. I
figured this is what the world looked like to the Six Million-Dollar Man.

I could almost hear the wails of
others motorists through my droptop’s roof.
By the way, watching that power roof disappear into the back boot (and
then reappear later) at the press of a button is a sensational show.

Naturally, when you drive a car
like this, people think you have loads of money to blow, and who am I to let
them know that I had the ride for only a week?
I somehow resisted the temptation to scream out the driver’s side
window: “Hey dude, you could have bought three top-line Camaros with the money
I spent on this car!”

Luxury? Are you kidding? Everything from a heated windshield to a
carbon fiber spoiler to front seats with more power features than a jet
fighter.

Alas, there are drawbacks.

Don’t even think of trying to smash
two people into the back seats of this XKR-S.
What are you, a sadist?

And for some reason, the satellite
radio kept cutting out on me. I don’t
know if that was because the car is so low-slung, or because it was simply
moving faster than the speed of sound.

Auto Enthusiasts

About

Mark Glover has been a professional journalist for 40 years. Since 1984, he has worked for The Sacramento Bee in California's capital city. He was the paper's auto editor from 2000-08, reviewing hundreds of motor vehicles during that time. His reviews currently appear at sacbee.com and in the Northern & Central California Cruisin' News published monthly out of Folsom, California. He is a former director on the board of the California Autombile Museum in Sacramento. A lifelong auto racing fan, Glover has attended the Indianapolis 500 since 1961. He has an extensive Indy 500 collection of programs, tickets and badges.